With its expected approval tonight of a historic budget, the San Francisco Board of Education completes the most tumultuous academic and fiscal year since 1972 when it became an elected body in the midst of the busing crisis. The road ahead for Superintendent Maria Su and the school board will not have as many curves as Lombard Street, but will stay rocky. In the fall, state education department fiscal crisis managers will remain at the wheel to drive budget decisions — largely cuts — while the superintendent and school board summon the energy to once again consider whether to close schools, the issue that led to the departure of the previous superintendent.
During this past school year, then-Superintendent Matt Wayne’s resignation was engineered following an emergency 9 a.m. Sunday special Board meeting in October; a high-level City Hall administrator Maria Su was installed as his replacement; three different school board members served as president; and four new school board members were appointed or elected to serve. Amidst this turmoil, the school district has dramatically reduced spending by a record $115 million and successfully kept state officials from taking greater budgetary control.
One key to the budget progress was offering 315 contract buyouts to encourage senior teachers and administrators to leave the school district and be replaced by less experienced and lower-paid individuals. While the buyout allowed the school district to avoid previously feared widespread layoffs, it did not prevent the elimination of 448 positions districtwide. After the dust clears, costs for school district headquarters employees will shrink from 25 percent of total salaries and benefits to just 16 percent. Shrinking the school district payroll from the top, not just from the classroom, was the consistent demand of many teachers and parents, and a win for Superintendent Su that has eluded prior superintendents for decades.
Without minimizing how far the school district has come this year, some of its biggest challenges are ahead. In the fall, schools will have fewer teachers and aides and larger classes. Meanwhile, fewer central office staff members supporting school sites and inevitably taking longer will take its toll on responses to teaching, facilities and other school-based needs. Many schools are relying on their own fundraising to pay for resources lost to budget cuts.
One key to the budget progress was offering 315 contract buyouts to encourage senior teachers and administrators to leave the school district and be replaced by less experienced and lower-paid individuals.
Increased class sizes and fewer resources may become the “new normal” with little hope for a quick return to previous levels of support. The school district estimates that it will receive 32 percent less in federal funding in the fall ranging from a 54 percent cut in Immigrant Student Aid to a 40 percent cut for English Language Learners and elimination by the Trump Administration of all federal dollars for Career and Technical Education. The school district has not yet announced whether it can make up for these dollars or how cuts will be felt in the classroom.
By its own estimates, the school district must cut an additional $59 million next year to eliminate its deficit spending pattern and restore some of the reserves it has relied upon to bridge its financial gaps. If it does not do so, some of its reserve accounts will be entirely wiped out by 2027. The financial climb is even steeper if the school district intends to have sufficient funding for future teacher raises. Next year, the school district will not be able to resort to contract buyouts or many other measures already taken this year to reduce the budget deficit.
For these and other reasons, the school district will explore — and potentially seriously plan for and implement — closing schools beginning in fall 2026. In 2024, the school district estimated that school closures could save up to $22 million, an amount that would close almost half the remaining budget deficit. Any discussion of closures requires extensive family and community engagement and input before decisions are made and a plan and commitment that the schools to which directly affected students will be assigned are fully supportive and successful.
The school district path forward rests heavily on Christopher Mount-Benites, Superintendent Su’s choice to be the new deputy superintendent for business services and operations hired unanimously by the school board last week. Most recently, he has spent less than a year as the Los Angeles Unified School District’s chief financial officer. Previously, his tenure as superintendent in Burlingame ended abruptly after he took personal leave in his last year and did not return. At the time, the Burlingame Education Association remarked: “. . . every teacher within our association is grateful that his tenure is complete.” In 2019, the West Contra Costa Unified School District superintendent placed the responsibility of a ballooning $40 million school district deficit on an inaccurate budget estimate Mount-Benites made when he was the budget chief for that district in 2017.
Superintendent Su has expressed her desire to remain as superintendent beyond the end of her current contract in June 2026. Achieving a balanced budget, increasing student enrollment, and improving student academic outcomes are three major determinants of whether she will succeed.
